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Oscars 2012: One Movie Critic Weighs In

Predicting who is going to win the Oscars is always a favorite pastime for film fans, yet while most simply focus on the major categories there are some truly geeky cinephiles out there that like to take a shot at all twenty-four. I'm one of those geeks. I follow each Oscar season very closely, seeing most nominees, and following trade reports about how each race and every contender is sizing up.

So here they are: my predictions across the entire ballot for the 2012 Academy Awards. Hopefully this can help serve as a crib sheet for your own Oscar predictions, particularly in the more obscure categories.

In each category I list all of the nominees, then who I think WILL WIN (not necessarily who I want to, but who I'm predicting), and end with UPSET POTENTIAL and designations of "Strong", "Possible", "Weak", and "None" (with reasoning for each, and the nominees that may play spoiler).

UPSET POTENTIAL: Strong. The Tree of Life should really win this and will no doubt get a lot of votes. But love for The Artist will put it over the top here, likely in a squeaker (though we’ll never truly know).

UPSET POTENTIAL: Possible. Costume dramas like Anonymous, Jane Eyre and Hugo almost exclusively win this category, but again—too much love for The Artist this year, and those other three will likely split votes. But if one pulls it out, it’ll be Hugo.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

UPSET POTENTIAL: Strong. The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is an artful elegy of the Japan tsunami disaster, but Saving Face—about helping Pakistani women who’ve been disfigured by men having thrown acid on their faces—is the more intimate and has the emotional pull of injustice and unnecessary man-made tragedy.

UPSET POTENTIAL: Strong. Three very good films here. Pixar’s creative and charming La Luna could actually benefit from the studio not having an Animated Feature nominee (they haven’t won Short since the Feature category was created), and Wild Life is an evocative different kind of “Western” from Canada, but The Fantastic Flying . . . is pure magic (and from an ex-Pixar artist); it really should be developed into a feature.

UPSET POTENTIAL: Strong. The Shore is by Terry George, who’s written many respected features (Hotel Rwanda, In the Name of the Father), and the story is conventional in an easy-to-like kind of way, plus he’s actually campaigned for this on the Oscar circuit. Raju is a moving story about child kidnapping (and well made), but Tuba Atlantic plays at the same heartstrings of late-in-life regrets as The Shore does, but with a more creative conceit at its core.

UPSET POTENTIAL: Weak. These awards go to either respected summer blockbusters or the big budget prestige pic with a lot of nominations. It’s the latter this year, and that’s Hugo. War Horse could surprise, though, as it’s a prestige pic with war sequences.

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
War Horse